


Tell Me About Your Day

by MiniInfinity



Series: "Love Stuck" Universe [3]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Parents, Angst, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slice of Life, Smoking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 17:42:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20119042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiniInfinity/pseuds/MiniInfinity
Summary: A series of stories about the other sides ofLove Stuckoutside of Wonwoo's own.





	Tell Me About Your Day

**Author's Note:**

> ah yes...this fic will be side stories of love stuck--some out of pure self-indulgence, some to fill in the void of love stuck in my life, and some to answer questions i received about the fic as i write and finish it up. it's marked as incomplete because i'm not sure how many of these side stories i'll write hehe.
> 
> unlike the actual fic, where chapter titles are based off the cities wonwoo's in, the chapter titles in this one will go by the year the chapter takes place, kinda? it's partly to separate the fic from these side stories and partly to help me keep track of the story slkdjfk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not long after the finalization of the divorce, Mingyu still needs time to adjust to this new life--from joint custody, falling back and behind in his job, the long drives back and forth between Incheon and Seoul, from Jihye's apartment and his own. With a new project under way, his boss offers to talk before he has to pick Seoyeon up at Jihye's apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some **warnings for this chapter:** smoking and my writing style hehe. it's preferred to read this after reading ch 18 because it contains a spoiler kinda
> 
> on another note, i'm trying to get back into the right writing mindset kinda to help me finish ch 20, so i thought writing something on the side would help me get over that slump

Lines blur against white of the screen, blurs into lines of city lights and skyscrapers accompanying him long after everyone in his office booked it for home. Perhaps no one wants to stay with him into the night hours, not like the months before this one, and he can't blame them. With floor plans barely sketched out for the four walls and doors, he knows for a fact no one wants to work with him now.

But perhaps no one really wanted to work with him in the first place, since he sat down in the conference room and shook hands with the clients, splayed out his ideas on the big screen with a promise too big to fit the whole vicinity. His mind barely grasped onto the numbers when they ventured far to inspect the area, couldn't even bring himself to write any of them down before his boss sent him home for the day.

And with Jihye moving to Incheon, with having Seoyeon for the weekdays, the sigh withers into his fingertips of the drive from Seoul to Incheon and back to Seoul. He brings his thumbs to his eyes, presses the tears back at the high favors of the moon refusing to take Seoyeon back home with him, just like the Fridays before this one. Just like every other weekend before this one.

The thought weighs his head more than the weeks before this one, allows it to sink onto his forehead and stay there. His shoulders fall into the same notion, and he thinks there's no use trying to press the tears back this time. He just wants to sleep right now, to wake up to reality that he and Jihye never split, that they're all one content family.

At the same time, the sigh bears down on him even more. Floor plans should have been finished earlier today, and he expects an earful from everyone else in this project. But he's not sure if he should be allowed anywhere near the site or anywhere outside of his home. He lifts his head back up, fingers searching for the stylus around, taps the end against the edge of the drawing tablet until a knock disrupts its rhythm.

His head bolts up in a frenzy at being caught progressing when everyone else stretches down the road far from where his vision can take him. He turns his head down a slight, eases the anxiety off of meeting eyes. He turns all the way around in his seat when he blinks for the faint of the blocky glasses, pudgy outline of his boss.

The pity strewn at his boss' eyes is something he wish never was for him since the chance of divorce slapped him on the face, but there's nothing he can do about it when exhaustion dresses him up every morning and doesn't let him go. Even on his way home from the office. Even on his way home from Jihye's apartment. Even when he's home alone and can rip out every aching thought vulnerable to the world if his mind wishes to.

"Do you want to call it a day, Mingyu?" his boss' voice hums low, strings each syllable in sorrow for what life challenges him with today.

But he shakes his head, his own voice thinning out when he apologizes for coming close to the need to start floor plans all over again. He glances at his screen again, at retouching vague borders per the client's request. The children's area in the hospital deserves someone else working on it, someone who has their heart in their job. He bites his lips and fits the pieces together, the bitterness of finding the end to this project.

Because he began this project with Seoyeon in his arms in his one day off, spewing to the ceilings about how he's working on taking colors and shapes, the world into this tiny one right here in the hospital. He began this project with Jihye by his side, luring in ideas from the bookshelves in one side and the windows to the world in another. He began this project with the hopes that Jihye and Seoyeon will be the ones sitting at the chairs long after the grand opening, reading to each other while he picks up Jihye's medicine, poking their faces between the gaps of books and the discovery of their new read and the next. He began this project under the illusion that Jihye will be there till the end of the project, another meeting with a new client, a new city, and beyond.

"You worked a lot on it already," his boss offers more out of pity and excuses than anything else. "You're doing more work than anyone else in the team."

He shakes his head, mutters about the long road to bring the children's area into construction. His boss works in miracles by continuing to bring him to the site, to every meeting with contractors and engineers, and he wonders how much he'll bet to himself before he's dropped from the project and the entire company.

"Take a break, Mingyu," his boss tries him again, and his heartbeat drops from ease and plunges into the anxieties of what his boss might ask of him, might assume about him. "Want to step outside with me?"

But he shakes his head again, his own voice thinning out when he apologizes for coming close to trashing the floor plans for who knows how many times already after the meeting this morning. His eyes gloss at his screen again, unfinished and may as well stay that way until he surrenders this part of the project to someone else whose time and motivation are worth more than his. His eyes fall flat from his boss leaning onto the cubicle's wall. If he hasn't traced a new line in the past hour, hasn't even saved anything new or profound since he sat down, another probably won't summon by sitting here for the rest of the night.

So he nods his head, swallows down the worry of never finishing what he should have a long time ago, and logs off.

Rooftop winds bellow across his face and even when his boss suggests to hurry back inside for his jacket or to do this in his office instead, he shakes his head again and comforts the cold.

"How have you been?" his boss begins uneasy, shoving his fists into his pockets.

"I've been okay" automatic from his lips. He's not sure what else to say around his boss. His personal life shouldn't cross his work life, but everything in his cubicle sheds into the grays of his empty home.

"Be honest with me," rings stern and doesn't even waver a syllable into the breeze. "It's a divorce; it's much more than that."

His eyes turn down at the prying of his boss, the lines stirring under everyone's eyes the moment their eyes land on him and they risk a word out of him. His thoughts brush up on something his coworkers and boss picked up on without digging too deep into the surfaces. Maybe it's the pictures of Seoyeon on his desk, taking over his computer's background, and construction papers with scribbles tacked on the walls.

"I'm more stressed about my daughter," loses its way from Mingyu's lips and down the railings.

His thoughts scrape a road he shouldn't tread at this time, not with someone else around. He ponders if everyone will perceive Seoyeon in a different light, that they will question the smile on her face or the hold of his two fingers in her hand. He brought her to the offices aside from from his own before. Everyone loved how Jihye mirrored the excitement off Seoyeon when they carried in wooden models out to the world for the first time in years and they haven't budged a centimeter since then. And Seoyeon played with his colleagues' children before but if he brings her back here to see them again, he doesn't want to hear a "Where did Auntie Jihye go?" pinning her to the corner.

He picks up a shuffle into paper and when he steers his eyes away from the city just this once, his eyes refuse to leave the box of cigarettes at his boss' hand. Before stuffing the box away into his jacket pocket, his boss offers the lid back open again to him.

Mingyu waves off the offer, admits he doesn't smoke. One last offer of the box towards him and something clicks in his mind. Uncertainty of what strikes him as he reaches over and plucks one out. No one in his family ever picked up a cigarette of their own, and he believed he would fall suit, especially after Seoyeon came into his life.

His boss lights up his own cigarette and starts a drag before Mingyu can even process the orange frays shooting off to the ground before his own stick. Mingyu watches his boss' chest rise as he swallows in smoke, nicotine, taps some bits off orange to white. His doubts of heaving his own cigarette to his lips wades to his toes, to his ankles when he tries to remember all the times he's peeled his eyes away at the sight of cigarette smoke. University years, behind the cafe he worked in at the beginnings of his freshman year, and the occasional grandfather past the parking garage, there isn't much his brain can match the memories with the present to.

Mingyu forces in the memories with a mimicry of his boss. He lifts the cigarette to his mouth and apprehension winds its way to his fingers.

_It's just this one time_, he tells himself as the ash floats down and out of his periphery.

He inhales a slight, leaves the smoke to wallow against his palate, and he's not sure where it should go. It poisons at his taste buds, dries his mouth and the back of his throat, and he sputters, coughs some of the remaining fumes into his fist. A hard clap at his back follows the wipes of his lips with the back of his hand, and he questions why anyone would want to choke like this or the bitter aftertaste cleansing into his tongue. He grimaces at the sight of the cigarette at his hand and would have thought it as a sign for his boss to take the cigarette off his novice fingers.

But he grimaces this time when he straightens back up and brings the stick up to his lips a second time, breathes in smoke and allows it to settle in his mouth, lets it breach into his lungs. His chest sways heavy; he's not sure if it's from the smoke or what he has to deal with landing so far behind in this project, what he has to steel himself against when he goes home or what more life wants to throw him under after this day.

His head buzzes, airs out gray and black of the day. At the same time, his head wants to fall to the ground, deeper into the floor and maybe all the way down to street signs and pedestrian crossings. The city blends with the stairs and when his vision does find its way back to the right places, he lifts the cigarette again. He lifts a hand up at the blur, though, to prick the tear at his eye.

He's not sure what it is that trips him up at the lapse before his third drag, but the regret of even accepting the cigarette in the beginning hits him all at once, hits him well enough to remind him that his boss stands right next to him and his boss is the one who suggested it. The guilt of breathing in all this awful stuff, what Seoyeon would think if she saw him with a cigarette or picked up the putrid smell off his clothes.

The thought of Seoyeon asking about the mere stench on his shoulder when he picks her up in his arms later snaps the sensation of his fingertips. The cigarette falls to the floor, and it's stupid of him to stumble to catch it. But the dull end slips through, and he thinks of nothing else to do but crushing it under his foot. He swallows hard, reminds himself again of his boss' offer of that very cigarette and how he wasted it when it's barely wasted to a black nub instead. He apologizes again, for who knows how many times tonight.

The relief of a sigh takes over, washes him a little more numb to what today brings him as his boss shakes his head, discards the box to the trash bin and his own light into the ashtray. Orange light waters down to gray. "It's a good thing you didn't want to finish it."

"I don't want her to know I smoked," spoken like a secret to the floor beneath him than a reply to his boss.

"Yeah," rough and holds weight into the sounds over the breeze picking up. Mingyu doesn't want to guess how many cigarettes passed between this man's lips, "I understand."

Mingyu tries his best to stay there with his manager, salvage a conversation before tossing it out into the streets again. The other architects, contacts of engineers, geologist surveying the land just one more time to ensure for something his brain his can't tap into at the moment. But his boss dismisses them with the suggestion of picking Seoyeon up.

"Don't worry about it," speaks more from the winds than his boss. "I think the team will understand your situation."

Mingyu nods low, a quiet gesture of gratitude of finally escaping the grips of his boss' questions. He bids a goodnight, another apology for the wasted cigarette, another apology for an unproductive day.

Mingyu churns his car inside-out, digs through his bag and his trunk, lifts Seoyeon's booster seat up and pops the glove compartment open for an extra shirt or jacket, a bottle of cologne to waft the cigarette smell into the air. He sits back down in the driver's seat with an exhale of frustration off his lips, back of his head thumping against the headrest. Driving to Junhui's apartment to borrow a jacket for the drive to Jihye's and back home leans more useless than help in the spectrum of good ideas.

He settles for the bottle of cologne brimming in air, just a few sprays left before futility, and his mind piques it as the spare he stashes hidden in his car. He uncaps it, storms up a cloud in his car--against his neck, arms, pants, sleeves, top of his hair. His finger pinches the nozzle until the bottle does brim in air and his eyes blend into pinks from the drying alcohol at his eyes, the fact he needs to face Jihye soon.

Will _he_ be there with her? Does _he_ know Seoyeon? Has Seoyeon met _him_?

The bottle rolls in his palm until the urge to throw it out the shut window gives into the better parts of himself. It's the same bottle Jihye bought for him, specifically to save in the car because of the times where he hurried from home without spraying any on. And at first, running back up the apartment cooed endearing off Jihye's lips until the days of packed elevators cursed him to waiting for the next ride up to his floor. He never felt the surrender to collapse on the floor until he ran up the flights of stairs, Jihye worried about his legs and lungs more than being late to his office.

Mingyu wipes harsh at his eyes, at the memory. He unlocks the car and throws the bottle into the trash.

When he buzzes in at the parking garage of Jihye's apartment building, he refuses to lift his eyes up to the screen as he tells her he's here to pick Seoyeon up for the weekend. After hearing her small "Okay," the doors slide open and stepping inside the lobby punches him more numb than the cigarette, mind fraying off to when the brighter parts of this meeting will be. In the elevator, reflections off the walls taunt him that he has to look at the same lines under his eyes, heavy sighs out his lips, and the fingernails jagged and digging into his palms for years and years after or, at least, until they decide on a school for Seoyeon when she reaches the age.

But beyond school, beyond where most of her life will be, he knows no right direction, not with Seoyeon's exhaustion from traveling back and forth between the cities and the apartment. He wonders how old Seoyeon will be when she asks why it's like this, why her parents are not like her cousin's parents, why Auntie Minseo and Uncle Donghyun live under one roof while she can't decide which one to truly call her home. Anxiety gnaws at him about the disagreements between him and Jihye, the promises of keeping their voices low and curses out their lips and away from Seoyeon's ears, away from that promise. He worries about reliving the finalization of the divorce, their refusals to give Seoyeon up to one or the other.

His hand flinches for the doorbell and drops the first time, reminds himself like a prayer that he has to pick Soeyoen up, before letting his hand roam free and aim for the button. When the door opens in a few seconds, he blinks up at Jihye in her old pajamas she wore long before they even considered holding hands, her black hair up in a messy bun. If the world felt sorry enough into a different universe, he would lean in to kiss her, play with the strands of her hair until she teases into playful annoyance, and poke the wet blob on her shirt from leaning over to bathe Seoyeon.

But his eyes can't tread anywhere past her shoulders and the messages, the name lighting up her screen that someone else would have thought were for Mingyu, remind him all too well of why they are like they way they are now.

He sighs, notes Seoyeon's bag ready on the kitchen counter. "Is she sleeping?" shrivels up in the quiets of her apartment.

Jihye nods, crosses her arms over her chest, eyes averting to the tiled floor. "She's asleep on my bed." He nods but doesn't budge a step. Jihye shifts to the side, opens the door wider, and tells him to come in.

But his eyes trail Jihye's and a slight at the click of the door wide open, one step away from the edges of the door frame. He did this last week, he did this the week before that, but why can't he do it again? Did he always have the rush to run away before stepping into her apartment?

He toes his shoes off in the hallway, slides them to the closest spot from the front door. Before pattering off to her room behind her, wishing for a quick visit to bring Seoyeon home and nothing more, the awful feeling of Jihye's eyes scrutinizing him tilts his chin up to muster up his doubts.

"Did you smoke?" she drops on him all at once. His lips gape for an answer and the question of how she picked it up so fast, overlays the old Jihye with the present. "I can smell the smoke." He pinches his shirt up to his nose, sniffs the wisps of ash and cologne pasted all over his clothes and skin.

He watches her feet leave for the corner of the hallway and returns with the sleeves of an old sweatshirt hovering just above the floor, one he convinced her to call hers years ago just to help her sleep. She also hands him a plastic bag and after changing into the sweatshirt, the view of her counter, Seoyeon's backpack, and her refusal to look at him in the eyes slaps him again with what this must be doing to Seoyeon.

Seoyeon sprawls her limbs all over the covers on Jihye's bed, thinning bumps and bridges of her body aiming for one edge of the bed to the other. Her hair laps up the pillow at one side of the mattress and she hugs a pillow to her chest. Peace soothes her into her slumber, but Mingyu feels worse knowing everything around her isn't like that.

And at that second, at this image of Seoyeon sleeping with steady breaths and lush pillows, warm blankets never in concern of being too short or too cold and her parents _standing_ right beside each other, he wishes to kneel down to her and beg for her forgiveness, to take her small palms into his and kiss them for as many times as she wishes if it means she won't have to wake up from a nightmare. She doesn't deserve this--going back and forth between one house and another, with one parent or the other instead of both of them together. Seoyeon doesn't deserve to watch her parents refuse to get along, to barely wanting to see each other, even if it was out of respect. He and Jihye can't revive conversations like they used to, can't laugh and pretend their jokes are stomach-ripping hilarious just to have Seoyeon laugh with them.

He leans over the bed and picks Seoyeon up into the bent of his arm, dusts the unruly strands from her face and allows her chin to sink into his shoulder. With the cigarette gone from his clothes, he lifts a hand to the back of her head and calms a palm to her back. Jihye reaches down to pick up her smaller bag propped on the nightstand, one that Mingyu bought for Seoyeon to use on lighter trips out and about, but he lowers himself faster than her to grab it in an instant.

He just wants to leave, to inhale the tears and threat of a sob escaping his lips before he does out of her apartment. He refuses to cry in front of Jihye, refuses to risk waking Seoyeon up in this mess. But he does allow his heart to slow down when Jihye steps closer to wrap a blanket around Seoyeon. He fixes it so that warmth covers from her shoulder to her toes. He winds his way back to the front door, taking the other bag from the kitchen counter before Jihye can step out of the room. He forces out a simple goodbye, shoves his shoes in while balancing Seoyeon in one arm and her bags at his other shoulder.

Jihye's offer to walk down the elevator, to at least carry something for him, almost leaves him feigning for the unheard. She steps close to fix the blanket on Seoyeon's shoulders again. The mistake of their eyes meeting punches him into wondering if something masks over his eyes other than the desire of covering everything up. But he shakes his head, bids her a second goodbye, and closes the door behind him.

On the drive back home in Seoul, he blinks the blur out his eyes every few seconds to convince himself the green light is for his car and not for the lone car down the next intersection. And in between one green light and the preceding red, his mind flips through those stories of couples, even married couples, getting back together after one cheats. Some of them sufficed with a few months or a mere "We can try again." Others, a few years and a compromise.

But perhaps Mingyu's mind swims too out of reach with reality to think he and Jihye will be one of those couples.

At home, after carrying Seoyeon to bed with another blanket on top of the one Jihye draped her with, he heads to the shower to scrub cigarette smoke from his flesh, his hair, his mouth. He doesn't stop at the red on his skin when he just wishes, out of the three of them, everything lays out better for Seoyeon's end. The thought of Seoyeon falling asleep in Jihye's bed and waking up in Mingyu's, in a home where both of her parents refuse to even glance at each other, shoves him against the wall and kicks him straight at his guts.

His eyes burn, and the heat of the water for the past few minutes stops his senses from picking out tears from the shower. He silences himself, in fear of Seoyeon hearing a whimper from an accidental slip of his lips, by biting into the junction of his forefinger and thumb. But by the time his teeth release his hand, marks sink deep until crimson rises and washes down the shower floor.

He wishes things ended better for all of them, that he and Jihye can, at least, smile at each other. There's a long way left to go to get there, that's a certain. They know they can't erase the nights after bringing up the idea of divorce, when their words refuse to meet in the middle, when Mingyu threw spiteful replies at her, whenever Jihye sobbed and apologized, promised it would never happen again. He knows sending his voice to top-notch distressing and yelling at Jihye never helped, and they never considered their volume until the aunt looking out for Seoyeon that night knocked on the door in the middle of their first bout of silence.

"How would I know?" angry, loud against their ears and his memories. "I obviously didn't pick it up this entire time."

The guilt of almost yelling at Jihye still stings him all the same, though, as every other night after those words, and he knows he's the one at fault for their anger heating up. Sure, they apologized for that, tried getting back together and prayed for something out of marriage counseling for weeks. Sure, they tried to balance out the best for Seoyeon in each one of those sessions with the counselor subjecting herself objective. But he thinks of the times after each session, when they sat at the dining table while Seoyeon slept and figured their wasted hours of the wordless could have been spent sleeping for the next day, preparing for the next session.

But at the same time, he can't imagine being disloyal like this to anyone.

The person he vowed his life to, who vowed her life back, his wonderings of something similar trickling into their university years kicks the air out his lungs. If those mornings of knocking at her dorm to drop off a cup of coffee or just to bury her in more layers in the winter were followed by her meeting up with someone else.

What did he do that made her do that? What did the man have that he didn't? What did that man have that Mingyu, her husband and the father of her daughter, didn't?

His thoughts bounce back to the nights when sleep refused to visit them on the bed anymore, when he couldn't sleep on the same bed as Jihye. The bed, holding the three of them together, brought insomnia to him for a few nights until he decided to grab a blanket and sleep on the couch. He remembers waking up in the middle of the night to a soft nudge at his shoulder and when he blinked the dark out of his eyes, Seoyeon cleared up before him, hugging her own blanket to her chest and rubbing her eyes. His eyes bore down even higher to Jihye hugging herself when she admitted Seoyeon wanted to sleep with him that night, that Seoyeon refused to sleep without her dad.

He remembers glancing at Seoyeon and how the world zeroed him to the tear at her eyes and the tremble of her lips when he opened his blanket up to her. He remembers not saying a thing when she asked why he wasn't sleeping with them on the bed anymore, the plea in his head that Seoyeon couldn't feel the tremble of his chest as he patted her to sleep, wiped the tear from his own eyes that night.

His fingers rub harsh and uneven all over each other when he opens his eyes to shower tiles. He shuts off the water and slips out into pajamas, slips into bed with droplets clinging onto his hair and seeping into the pillows. He resorts to patting Seoyeon's back as a scowl wires her face. He notices how her shoulders reach just a tad longer from his wrist to the tip of his finger, but they bear so much weight already.

\----

The pressure at his shoulder wakes him up before the clock in his body or his phone. He cranes his head to one side, towards Seoyeon's side of the bed, where she flattens a palm to his shoulder. When he blinks, he chokes at the force on his shoulder, almost as if to shove him off the bed.

But he picks out the tears at her eyes that breaks into cries for her mother, of why she had to come back here without her.

Mingyu shoots up on the bed and sits towards her, the tips of her toes barely brushing the bend of his knee. He explains that "Mommy lives somewhere else right now," but it only sears a pinch of her eyes shut and a wail out her lips again. He doesn't know what to do to comfort her and reaches out to hold her, pick her up and hug her, but the mere swat at his fingertips burns down his arm and to the pit of his heart.

"I want Mommy," she whines till her last breath, one more gasp, until it shrills into another string of cries.

His shoulders give into the weight, and he wishes he had someone else here, someone like Jihye, to soothe Seoyeon's sobs against the walls and the whimpers over her hand because her own father isn't enough. So he pushes himself off the bed this time, stands up and reaches out to pick her up again in his arms or thumb the tears off, but she cries out for her mother instead.

He thinks it's no use trying to bring her to his arms.

The world throws him a mockery as a father when Seoyeon scoots herself off the bed and stomps around the mattress. Her hands on his lower back has him praying that what she's going to do isn't what his mind coaxes him into thinking, but the push of his back towards the hallway succumbs to his thoughts.

It hurts him, paints the words of failure behind his eyes, that he can't be someone his own daughter can turn to, can't be the person he promised to be the moment they found out they were having a child.

He doesn't turn around when she drops her hands from his back, doesn't even flinch at the sound of the door slamming shut behind him. When a second passes, he turns around, notes the uncertainty of the world at his eyes, and touches the doorknob. He sighs at a locked door.

Giving Seoyeon time to herself may help.

He heads into the kitchen, pulls drawers and opens cabinets for the key to the bedroom. As he wonders what he should cook for breakfast, his fingers latch onto it high in the kitchen cabinets and slips it into the pocket of his sweatpants. And as much as he hates making something so sweet in the morning for Seoyeon, he pulls out the pancake batter from the shelves. The frying pan doesn't see the light of mornings when his periphery fails on him and he stands back up, shuts his eyes, and whispers to himself that taking a deep breath will help, even if a sound comes out and risks into Seoyeon's ears.

Cooking breakfast for Seoyeon dwindles down to occasionally wiping the tears form his eyes so they don't land on her pancakes. It means a memory's whiplash of all the times he would set Seoyeon on the counter as Jihye whipped the pancake batter and asked Seoyeon to think of a shape and she'd magically turn it into a pancake.

When a short stack of them winds its way to the dining table, he heads to the bathroom and breathes in his tears. He offers the mirror the fakest smile, splashes his face clean with cold water, but he thinks it's good enough when pinks from the whites of his eyes wash off a bit and aims more for his nose as he blows it.

He knocks on the door this time and the first time, nothing stirs from the door. He kneels down to Seoyeon's height and at the second time, he hears footsteps pattering closer to his own feet. The third time, though, he considers sneaking a hand for the key.

But the door opens without sneaking his hand for the key or for a fourth time. Seoyeon rubs her eyes with the flats of her palms. He mentions the pancakes he made and the strawberries in the fridge, asks if she wants to eat. Her eyes ponder on the thought at the floor, and he asks a second time if she wants to eat, if she wants to eat with him.

The sigh of relief diffuses into the air and against the nod of Seoyeon's head, her arms winding around his neck. He lifts her up into his arms and walks to the kitchen with a hand at her back, a kiss to her temple.

He carries Seoyeon to her booster seat at the table, but he stops before her feet hover above the bar. He thinks this morning wouldn't hurt him for being selfish, to have her sit at his lap. As Seoyeon eats her first pancake, peers up at him with the last of her tears at his eyes, he untangles the knots at her hair with his fingertips, stroking down until her hair frees up the jungle of her strands. He kisses the top of her head as she leans over and barely reaches for a second pancake, kisses another time when he leans over and sets it on her plate. He kisses a third when she thanks him, a fourth when she picks up her fork. He rains down a fifth when she takes the first bite into it, a sixth and seventh when she brings the fork up to his lips, instead.

"Do you want some strawberries, Seoyeon?" are the first words outside of her mother this entire morning.

When she nods, it brightens the better parts of Mingyu. It might not mean much to anyone else, but it means more than what he can ask for to see her opening up to him after what happened earlier. They need time; they may need a lot of it, but it means something to him that she isn't shoving him away from her.

He lifts her up off his lap and back to her booster seat. He tells her to stay there and he'll wash an entire bowl up just for her, cut them up and bring them over.

But in the middle of setting the box over to the sink, he catches her climbing off the seat and down the attached stepladder, scurrying over to him. Her hand winds its way to his pocket and her fingertips latch onto the fabric as he goes around the kitchen for her strawberries. Nearly halfway through cutting up the bunch, he brings a fresh slice to her, holds it over her lips. The ghost of a smile greets their mornings when she accepts it apprehensive from his hand at first, hums a thank you, and bites as much of the strawberry as she can.

He smiles a little more this time and hopes Seoyeon doesn't want to run away from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! this thing felt awfully heavy in my heart to write  
but anyway, i'm kinda more active on [twitter,](https://twitter.com/_miniinfinity) so there's that

**Author's Note:**

> thank you again for reading! the title of the fic is from the song [Tell Me About Your Day by Kwon Jinah](https://open.spotify.com/track/1xq7i7F0t4RwSHfEU3Fjnm?si=zRIl-iUzSWy6LfvYsqnMhw)
> 
> i'll still be in [ tumblr](http://seokmins-thighs.tumblr.com/), [twitter,](https://twitter.com/_miniinfinity) and [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/miniinfinity) if you like to scream at me :')


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